Starting in just a few months, our church will be re-launching our small group ministry, which we are re-titling: “Discipleship Groups.” Aaron has already given the reasons for why we are making some of the changes that we are, what I want to do today is think through is why we even need something like small groups in the first place.
In the history of the church, small groups (as we know them) are a relatively new creation—starting in the late 17th century in Germany, before spreading to England in the 18th, and then the Americas. But if it isn’t taught in the Bible and it is relatively new, why do it?
Because there is a clear principle at work:
- The Christian life relies on community.
- We live in a time that makes that community peculiarly difficult.
My whole sermon is going to be an expansion of that first point, so let me take the next minute or two of this introduction to help us consider the second.
What date in history proved to be the most consequential for the history of the church?
- The conversion of Constantine in 312?
- The rise of Islam in the 7th century?
- The Protestant reformation in 1517?
Carl Trueman’s idea? In 1908, Henry Ford produced the first Model-T car in Detroit, Michigan. “I think the invention of the motor car is probably the most significant event in church history, because it utterly transforms how the church operates. You can have your reformations, you can have your medieval church piety, but once people can jump in a car, and drive outside of their community to a church elsewhere, everything changes.”
Why? Because once you can drive, your options open up. You can become more choosy—which affects you, as the parishioner, and the church. At one point, all churches were limited by the people who were within walking distance. But once you have a car? Well, then you know the preaching at the church on the other side of town is more exciting, the music more to your taste, and you know what? These people here kind of annoy you and that one person has sinned against you and it is just so hard to confront them like Jesus said we should…I bet the people over there won’t be so difficult.
Churches, as a consequence, have to market themselves, either to prevent themselves from losing people or (more sinisterly) trying to attract others. Preachers may become more nervous about teaching unpopular doctrines, more reluctant to confront members caught in sin, or practice church discipline. Further, the communal life of the church is altered when the church is comprised of commuters. The book of Acts tells us that the early church gathered together “day by day” in the temple and in each others’ homes (Acts 2:42-47). When you live thirty minutes apart from each other, that’s a lot harder to do.
What do we do? We can’t pretend to live in a pre-modern, agrarian society where we quit our 9-5’s and build a commune together.
I’m just trying to underline the unique headwinds we face as Christians living in the modern world of the 21st century. And I haven’t said anything about the internet or smart phones or streaming services!
The ascendancy of independence, choice, convenience, freedom, entertainment, and comfort as unqualified, unquestioned, and unrestricted goods in our life set our culture at odds with the moral and communal vision of the Christian life.
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7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
- Heb 3:7-14
As Aaron mentioned last week, the book of Hebrew is a sermon a pastor has written to his church who have experienced increasing persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. They have been imprisoned and attacked, and so they have been tempted to abandon Christ to avoid difficulty. And this sermon is the pastor’s attempt to both encourage them to press on, and to warn them what will happen if they walk away.
Danger, Remedy, Community
Danger
The pastor of Hebrews cites Psalm 95 in verses 7-11
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
David here is citing the story of rebellion that takes place at the edge of the Promised Land. If you are unfamiliar with the story, God had delivered His people from Egypt through the Exodus and promised them a land that they could have for their own as a possession forever, a good land “flowing with milk and honey.” However, the people of Israel get to the very edge of that land and send in twelve spies to investigate the land. Ten of the spies say, “The land is full of giants in invincible castles. If we go in there, we will be obliterated. There’s no chance.” Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, say, “Come on! We can take ‘em! God is with us! Don’t you remember what He did to Pharaoh??”
Think of what the Israelites standing at the edge of Promised Land had seen up that point? The ten plagues, the pillar of fire, the parting of the Red Sea, the voice of God booming from Mount Sinai, the bread from heaven, the water from the rock, the armies of their enemies fleeing before them—aside from the generation that existed at the the time of Christ, no other generation alive had seen more miracles than the Exodus generation. And yet…they harden their hearts and go astray in their hearts. You can have all the evidence in the world, you can even receive the blessings of God…and still not have a heart that is open to Him. That trusts Him.
And so, that generation was destroyed. They did not enter God’s rest, but His wrath. And King David, who is writing Psalm 95 hundreds of years after this event, warns his listeners: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, don’t harden your hearts like them—watch out, or you will experience God’s wrath.”
And the pastor of Hebrews is reading that psalm and sees that we can apply this example to ourselves as well: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God,” (Heb 3:12)—don’t let what happened to the wilderness generation happen to you!
What’s the danger? The pastor of Hebrews is talking to the church (”Take care, brothers”), and he says Church, don’t let this happen to you! Don’t have a hard heart, don’t fall away from God and experience His wrath and not His rest!
If you are a theologically minded Christian, you might read that and furrow your brow and think: Hang on, can pastors talk to Christians that way? Like they could fall away from God? Listen to how Paul describes this Exodus generation like a church, complete with a kind of Old Testament sacrament similar to baptism and the Lord’s Supper:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:1-12)
Do you have a place in your life as a Christian for warnings like that? You can be baptized, you can take the Lord’s Supper, you can profess with your mouth…and fall away.
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. - John 6:37-39
God preserves his children from falling away; but he keeps them by the use of means; and one of these is, the terrors of the law, showing them what would happen if they were to fall away. There is a deep precipice: what is the best way to keep any one from going down there? Why, to tell him that if he did he would inevitably be dashed to pieces…So God says, "My child, if you fall over this precipice you will be dashed to pieces." What does the child do? He says, "Father, keep me; hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” - Charles Spurgeon
For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. - Heb 3:14
Remedy
But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. - Heb 3:13
Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin
You don’t know that your heart is being hardened—it is deceitful. Meaning, it tricks you.
As long as it is called ‘today’
David writes “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.” There will be a day when you can’t hear his voice anymore. When you have let your heart crystallize. So now, if you have your conscience pricked, now if you hear the warnings and feel something, then don’t let your heart be the poor soil in Jesus’ parable. Don’t let Satan steal the word, don’t let the difficulties of life, or the cares and concerns choke it out. How can you be the good soil? “20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”” (Mark 4:20).
As long as it is still the day that we can respond to God’s word, we need to work to prevent our hearts from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin…how? By…
Exhort one another every day
What: Exhort
- Urge, warn, encourage
- And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. - 1 Thess 5:14
- We need different responses
- 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. - Phil 2:29-30
- We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. - 1 Thess 5:12-13
Who: One another
- the church
- Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. - Gal 6:1-2
When: every day
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Heb 10:23-25
Application
Sunday Morning Worship
Discipleship Classes/Prayer
Summer Gathering
Discipleship Groups
Book studies
Hospitality
Organic opportunities
Prayer for each other
But what if this feels hard?
- The love of good…grows by doing good. - Josef Pieper
- Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. - Heb 4:11
- Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Heb 4:14-16
